New Software Stuff: July 2010 Archives

Upon replacing the phone and restoring it from the last backup, the phone (now iOS 4.01; the backup was iOS 4, and the phone was OS 3.x until a day or so before the swap.) exhibits the following symptoms:

So, we restored the phone to factory new, and then synced it with her computer. 

Initially, surfing the web crashed Safari, but we wiped out the bookmarks and the cached pages and cookies, and we could surf the web. Yay! Although we could surf the web, we couldn't set up any email accounts. Boo! Google Apps (gMail, actually) claimed that the password was wrong, but I was able to setup the same account on my iPhone without any trouble. Quite easily, in fact.

I then removed all of the apps from the phone in the hope that there was an app that was causing the conflict with iOS 4. That didn't do the job. 

Out came another brand-new iPhone 3GS, and we moved the SIM card and began the restore process. Unfortunately, the phone was iOS 3, so it had to be upgraded to iOS4 before we could continue. Unfortunately, the phone failed the OS upgrade, with the ever helpful "Unknown error."

Moving the new new phone to another computer for restore, it failed, so we declared it DOA. Now, back to the one we got yesterday for another try.

After restoring it to factory new, we were unable to surf the web. So, now I have had three different iPhone geniuses poring over the phone, and all are puzzled.

Next, we take the new phone (not the DOA one from today, but the replacement from yesterday) and restore it to new phone state, without ever connecting it to my wife's computer. In this factory new state, the phone wouldn't run Safari! Now, we have at least a diagnosis: the new phone has some issue with its network hardware that prevents it from working properly. Unfortunately, between my wife and I, we have exhausted the on-hand phones, so there is no replacement phone available. One was ordered, and should arrive tomorrow or Wednesday.

All in all, we had three computers attached to several iPhones in different combinations for over three and a half hours with a diagnosis, but no satisfaction. Now, the new phone is back to its hobbled state, able to work as a phone and get email, but unable to surf the web.

This release updates the Rapid Application Development environment to Flash Player 10.1, which opens the door for mobile Flex development. According to Adobe, some of the improvements include:

Adobe also released Hero, its latest iteration of the Flex SDK. Read about it here. It is intended to unify the development paths for desktop and mobile, and provides a single framework for developing Rich Internet Applications as well as desktop applications based on AIR2.

I am in the midst of creating a mobile application, and we have been complaining internally about how easy it would be if only Flex (Flash Builder) supported Flash Player 10.1. Targeting Android and Blackberry devices, we now can create one app using Flex and AIR rather than several different apps with different development kits. It is true that the player isn't ready on the devices, but by the time we're done with the App, Flash Player 10.1 should be widely deployed on Android and RIM as well as Palm and others.